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| Butt Johnson’s elaborately detailed ballpoint pen drawings combine complex ornamentation from a range of historical repositories with various cultural iconography; some recent and some more antiquated, but together forming a compounded visual language with powerful and current significance. Such subjects as the popular “SETI” screensaver (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) within a romantic context of unrequited love and the menagerie of contemporary writers and historical figures all sharing the name “Dave” (“Postmodern Daves”) are among the diverse themes in Johnson’s work. Other cultural references often specific to the artist’s generation, such as Super Mario Bros. are combined with art-historical motifs. Johnson has also focused on the grim but again intensely detailed renderings of the aftermath of car-bombs, presumably in the middle-east. These twisted and charred remains of automotive steel have a floral quality, as if delicate and withered flower petals often ensconced in the repeating webs of hybrid Islamic patterning. |
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